Amoungst Shadowed Doubt
by Dusted Memory
Summary: Rei begins developing a personality, causing Shinji to realize what he's lived for all along... right when it's too late.


Disclaimer:

Actually, I do own something that has to do with Evangelion! HAHAHAH! I have a poster! And a model! And an action figure! Three videos and a dye-cast statue! ... Uh, other than that, Evangelion is property of Gainax and not me. Darn, eh? 

A/N:

I don't think of this as one of my best works … in fact, I personally think it insults my ability to write. (Sorry if I sound like a stuck up bitch… n.n; ) Oh well. It exists, so I thought I would post it. I revised it so it's not as bad as it was… 

---

"Amongst shadowed doubt"

Chapter One

---

"An unidentified object is heading this way,"

The words reached my head and failed to register the first time, but when my father spoke, it caught my attention. 

"I thought that boy was the last." 

I turned to look at him, the dark figure standing still, looking so tall and solemn. His face was expressionless behind his darkly framed glasses as he continued to speak without waiting for a reaction from Fuyutski. "All personnel go to level one, yellow alert." He commanded. He turned and looked at me, or I think he did anyway; it was hard to tell with those glasses he wore. But he said nothing, to my disappointment. Instead, he turned to Ritsuko. "Langely is still in ICU?"

"Yes," Ritsuko answered simply.

My body went rigid, knowing it was me he would pick next. I felt a hand clap down on my shoulder and heard Misato's voice say something, but the feeling of knowing it was something I didn't want to hear stuck with me. So I didn't hear it.

"Then you shall go, Shinji." Someone was saying.

_My name._ Someone said my name. I looked in the direction of the voice that had said my name, to find only my father standing and looking out the opaque glass window that framed the geo-front's horizon. "Yes, sir." I answered, feeling rather mechanic, not having thought about my response at all. 

I turned and walked from the over view room.

---

"We're getting a high energy reading within the target!" 

"What??"

I could hear the voices echoing out around me, seeing as unless the speaker was turned off from the outside, everything said on in the over view room was transferred directly to me via a transmission system. I didn't care what they where saying, though. It didn't matter to me. 

A large black cloud hovered on my LCD screen. _The enemy. _That's all that mattered. I didn't need to care what the voices said, as long as the enemy got destroyed. 

"It's accelerating on its periphery! Starting to converge!" 

" Another particle beam?" 

The black cloud seemed to be taking a shape. A cube. A cube and a star... a bright star... 

_Nnnnnn....._

"Shinji!"

_My name._ I immeaditly snapped out of the semi-trance that seeing a cube with a star on the end had put me in for some odd reason. I gripped the control stick tightly, even though I knew I didn't need it for to make the Eva move. 

"Duck!" 

_Fire._

 That was the word my mind interrupts 'duck' as in any situation where it probably shouldn't. So that's exactly what I did. 

I fired. 

And was greeted with blackness. A vast blackness...

---

"The target has gone inactive!"

"EEG abnormal! Pulse faint!"

"I'm going to get him!"

"Major! You can't go in there, you'd be burnt alive!"

"The particle beam did that much damage?"

"Pilot brain waves erratic!"

"We have to send Unit-00 in to retrieve him."

"Pulse has stopped!"

"Life support to max! CPR!" 

...

"Pulse confirmed."

"Emergency LCL flush!"

"Hurry the hell up, get Rei going!" 

"Launch in 04, 03..."

"Pulse faint."

"02..." 

"Pulse stopped!"

"CPR!"

"..."

"Again!"

"01..."

---

_Clank._

"0-1800 hours. Unit-00 has successfully retrieved Unit-01's ejected entry plug." 

The voices where back. _I fired at the enemy like they said to. But it didn't work. What happened?_ Brightness filled my eyes as they squinted open and it was accompanied by the hissing of the superheated entry plug being pried open.  A figure appeared over me and before my eyes got a chance to adjust to the brightness, I had thought it was Misato. I had expected it to be, at least. Seeing as she was always my 'rescuer'...

Much to my surprise however, Ayanami was hovering over me. She had been the person I least expected to see, but that wasn't what really shocked me. The thing that shook me most  (and maybe even disturbed me slightly) was that she looked worried. 

She actually looked worried.

"Ikari-kun?" She demanded sternly, grabbing me by the shoulders and lifting me up slightly out of my seat in the cockpit. 

It took me a minute to realize I had been lying limp and motionless aside from opening my eyes. When I did realize it, I jerked back out of her grip in an extremely alarmed manner and instinctively stuttered an apology. 

"Please do not apologize." Rei said, backing away from me as I had done to her a few moments earlier. She rested against the frame of the entry plug, which had evidently cooled off a bit. "I should have come faster and I should not have tried to pick you up without checking you for injuries." She paused and looked away from me. An awkward silence filled the air until she looked back at me and finished speaking. "Are you hurt?" 

I shook my head and turned in the seat, lifting my legs over the side and trying to stand up. As soon as my left foot hit the ground, I doubled over, than fell backwards onto the chair again. Rei moved forward and delicately touched my arm. "You lied to me, Ikari." 

The pain was immense and nearly unbearable, yet I had no desire to tell her how it felt... despite the fact I felt like I might pass out soon. So instead, I chose to say something else. "I have a name besides Ikari, you know." I said, stopping in the middle of my statement to wince. Rei withdrew her arm at this. "It's Shinji." 

Rei looked embarrassed for some odd reason. I immeaditly felt like I had done something wrong. "I-I'm really sorry!" I mustered in a very nervous tone. "I didn't mean to... offend you... or ... anything..." 

"No," She replied promptly, looking up at me with what I thought resembled a smile. "I shall call you Shinji now. Did the second know this? I-I do not feel as though it is in my memory." 

I shook my head and smiled politely, trying to let her know she hadn't done anything wrong. "Uh-Uhn. You've always called me Ikari. I just...." I paused, trying to think of how to explain to her that people called my father Ikari and I didn't want to be like my father. 

She interrupted me, which didn't seem at all like something the Rei I knew would do. "I know why you do not wish to be called Ikari. I am sorry." 

Before I could insist she did not apologize to me anymore, voices where yelling in our direction. Lights began flashing on and off behind Rei and the remnants of what I had thought to be a smile quickly faded. "They're here to get you, Shinji. Come, I'll take you to them... they cannot get any closer than they are." 

That's when I noticed the suit Rei was wearing. It wasn't her normal plug suit. Instead it looked like a space suit made out of aluminum foil. I scowled at my own stupidity. _That Angel - no, not an Angel... we killed those... I think... -- must have done something weird to do... whatever it did... maybe it set the ground on fire... or... something..._

I stood again, only putting my weight on my right foot and trying to make my way out of the entry plug. I failed miserably when I had to step onto my left foot to exit and ended up falling. Rei caught me (again a little surprise, on my part) and slipped herself under my left arm so she could support me while we walked. 

Slowly we made our way out of the wreckage of what had once been Eva Unit-01 and towards the group of people yelling and waving flashlights about 70 meters away.  

"Rei," I whispered, before we reached the people. "Why did you come and rescue me? Why didn't you let Misato do it like she always does?"

She never answered me, though. All she did was keep pulling me along while I still thought that I could probably faint at any moment from extreme amounts of pain.

And strangely, I felt the need to savor that time I was so close to Rei.

---

"It's hot." Came Misato's whiney voice from behind me. I sat at the kitchen table, staring down at my homework and trying very hard not to mind the fact that there where a pair of breasts dangling beside my ear while Misato looked over my shoulder. "So you're actually studying, eh, Shinji? HA! Yeah right." She snatched my work from me and pulled it up over my head, letting quite a few papers fall to the floor as she waved my notebook around. "You've probably got porn or something in here you where looking at - come on, where is it?"

Misato had found the need lately to bother me in every little way possible now that I couldn't get up and object to it. My leg had been 'severely broken' as Ritsuko put it and later I was told it was lucky I didn't have to get it amputated. And even though it was in a cast and I had crutches... I still couldn't manage to get around very well. 

The phone was ringing, so Misato (whom had become bored with shaking my notebook around and waiting for pornography to fall out) walked over and stared down at the dusty white phone. 

"I don't want to answer it." She whispered quietly, sounding almost like a child whom was reluctant to do its chores. 

I finished gathering my school papers that had been strewn all over the floor and put them in a stack on the table again. "Then don't," I responded, equally as quiet. She turned at me and looked slightly alarmed; I don't think she had expected me to say anything. I didn't normally say anything. I quickly picked up my papers and walked out of the kitchen, towards my room.

The last thing I heard before I shut my door was a single muffled sob.

---

My finger fumbled for the play button in the darkness of my room and found it almost immeaditly. It was sort of an instinct now, seeing as I often came to music for a retreat from reality. The SDAT began to play quietly - only quietly - I needed to be able to hear it if someone was approaching my room. And sure enough, it came in handy that time as well. 

I could hear footsteps coming down the hall, so I flipped away from the door and let my thumb hit the stop button. 

A muffled cry reached my ears from directly outside my door, than something was whispered that I couldn't quite understand.

But one name came to mind. 

_Asuka. _

_No, why is Asuka here? She should be... she should..._

_How did she get out?_

Something else was whispered, more distinct this time, but with another sob between the words. "Oh Shinji... where are you...."

I brought my arms closer to me, accidentally hitting the play button again and wincing as 'Messiah' came in over the earpieces. 

I was suddenly afraid to be heard, afraid to be discovered. 

But it went away. I didn't hear anymore. No more voices... no more footsteps.

 ---

That morning Misato had got a call. She hadn't said anything during the entire twenty-minute conversation. Only 'hello' and 'Yes, I see.'  She had told me she was needed at NERV and insisted to be able to drag me along with her. 

I now stood in the over view room, looking up at a television which had normally shown a black and white image of the ICU room where Asuka stayed.

The television was blank.

And that's how I knew.

I knew why no one was on in the room with me - they where looking for her.

I knew what I had heard was not something I imagined.

I knew I was the only person that had an idea of where she went.

But I also knew the one person I wanted to run to for comfort.

And the thought scared me beyond all reason.

Beyond thought...

It scared me beyond my sense of existence. 

---

_He had wanted to know why I saved him._ Rei thought to herself as she sat in the middle of her room on the edge of her bed. It was a bare room, the walls pale and gray. She could see only a little because the curtains set on rollers to her right blocked out most of the moonlight. _He saved me once before. I was told I should repay those who do favors for me._

_"Treat others as you wish to be treated, that is the golden rule."_

_Someone once said that to me. _She bitterly realized who exactly had told her that as she stared at the broken, thickly rimmed glasses that sat in front of her on the rolling desk. She did not share the memory of the Rei that had come before her, or the one before that, but she knew deep inside she despise of the person who had worn those glasses at one time. 

She hated him beyond human comprehension. 

Yet she longed for him just as much. 

His touch, his affection... all that he could give to her... she wanted it. Every last bit of it was something she wanted. And getting those things she wanted so dearly was all that she lived for. Rei knew that. She also knew the one she wished to receive those things from could not give them to her. He was too busy with things of his own. _His disturbing past and his secrets... what he has to cover up, I must also cover up. I shall keep his secrets as if they where mine._

_The things he has done to keep me alive and to keep my secret of existence alive... to keep it from no longer being a secret..._ Rei's thoughts ran together, unable to be understood by her own self and probably by any person that knew what she was thinking - though there where none of the sort - _The things he's given up for me and sacrificed so I could live. It seems as though he would be such a wonderful person. But after how he treats Ik-... Shinji... I do not see how he can be the kind person he makes himself out to be._

_He tells lies, also. That is what keeps me alive. He told me once that a person who lies should never be trusted around those who are in its environment. Such behavior is bad for those people around them, he had said. So why do I listen to him? He told me not to. He told me to ignore him, basically. _

"I do not know what to do." Rei muttered into the darkness as she sat on the edge of her bed and contemplated over random thoughts. _Ik-... Shinji... yes, I must remember to call him that. Shinji seems nice enough. I am sure those before me had noticed also. He reminds me... of the commander. I should ask him for help. He might know what to do and he could help me._

"Help me with what?" She demanded of herself in her usual monotone voice. "I do not even know what is wrong with me. A bane of existence is barely keeping me alive... from not slipping into the project so deeply that I have no barrier between those thoughts in my mind related to Eva and what is reality." _I am not making sense. I need help, badly. I must speak with someone Yes, Shinji. That is who I must speak with. But Shinji used to live with the commander and the commander lies._

_What if Shinji lies?_

"Who do I trust?" 

_What do I do? _

Rei looked around her room with a bitter, emotionless expression on her face. The walls of the room where a light blue while the corners where swallowed by a strangely inviting darkness._ I want to go to the darkness. _She told herself, carefully studying each corner and deciding the unknown that lay within them was more inviting than the foreseen, illuminated walls. _I do not know what lays within the darkness and therefore it seems inviting. I want the darkness like I want the things that some people can give to me._

_But why is that? _

 "It is because the light shows the way and what lays ahead is foretold. You do not get surprised and when something bad is coming... you are faced with the burden of its expectance. If you do not know what is ahead, then a downfall comes as surprise." She told this to the empty room, knowing it would not respond. Knowing it would not comfort her or agree with the way she made sense of things. "It seems better to be surprised because then you can live and be happy until unhappiness comes. You do not have to live fearing unhappiness."

_But SEELE provides a light and shows what will happen. The one I long for, he told me this and he made it clear that without them we would be in darkness. That is why. It says the end will come and that it will not be later in the future. The end will come soon so we must therefore fear it because SEELE tells us to... NERVE works for SEELE and I work for NERV._

_I help the lightness shine._ Rei realized in horror, also coming upon the fact that none of this made any sense._ None of it at all... I do not want to help it shine because as long as it is there, then the darkness cannot fall and happiness cannot be._

"I refuse to help." Rei declared stubbornly to the darkness. 


End file.
